


Trust - Prologue

by A_Galeb_Duhr_named_Squish



Series: Trust [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:28:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26404993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Galeb_Duhr_named_Squish/pseuds/A_Galeb_Duhr_named_Squish
Summary: Cass-8, a Hunter in the Last City's Vanguard initiative, has her faith in the Traveller, and the Vanguard itself, tested.
Series: Trust [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1919122
Kudos: 2





	Trust - Prologue

The gun weighed heavy in Cass-8’s left hand. Her cold, metallic fingers wrapped around the chassis of it, the thumb just brushing the cylinder, causing it to rotate with a faint click; once, twice, thrice. It was hefty enough without the rounds loaded in, but its name was harder to carry.

Trust.

That’s what Germaine had called it, as he fished it from a small steel toolbox, lined with soft black fabric.

“It’s yours now. Use it well, sister.” His sly smile never faltered.

She shifted the hand cannon in her palm, slipped her index finger into the trigger guard, and gave it a spin to test its balance. Satisfied with the fit, she raised a brow above her luminescent orange eyes, and grinned. The hammer came back easy, the trigger was slick and clean to pull, and the sights were true.

“Why me?” Her voice was tinny, broken from the damage she’d suffered over the years. When Drifter narrowed his eyes at her, she continued. “Come on, D, how many of these have you got stashed away back there? You give a cannon to every would-be gambiteer?”

“You ain’t a would-be, though, are you? Outpaced gambit. Outpaced prime. That kinda energy deserves some, ah… positive reinforcement.” He winked. “Besides, that old thing was goin’ to waste, collectin’ dust in here. Go on, go give it a workout.”

Cass-8 looked suspiciously at the man as he produced an oblong jade coin from seemingly nowhere. Drifter began to pass it over, around, and through his fingers, almost mesmerizingly, before the Exo yielded, nodding slightly. As she left, the Drifter called out to her.

“And if you wanna take it straight to the Darkness,” He said, the smile dancing along his words, “There’s a gambit match on Titan in an hour!”

Cass-8 did not participate in gambit that day.

Not that she was afraid of it, or anything; like Drifter had said, she’d done her part. She’d taken her best to the ring, and come out dinged up but victorious, time and time again. No, her absence was more about the gun.  
She’d received other guns before. More than she could count. Some meant something, others didn’t.

An Elatha fusion rifle? Good, a nice weapon for reaping in gambit. Fine.

Bray’s Polaris Lance? Sick, sometimes she liked to hit things from afar. Fine.

The Ace of Spades? Hell, she’d passed that on to someone more deserving.

But Trust?

The hell did that mean?

Drifter liked to talk about trust. As a concept, a behaviour. A mechanic that operated in social interactions and bonds. So why’d he name a friggin’ gun after it?

She laughed to herself. Titan’s methane sea gurgled and raged in response. It bothered Cass-8 none, since she was high above it, perched comfortably on… something. A big steel pillar, as far as she knew. She couldn’t put a name to any of the stuff in the arcology, bar the things a toddler knew; door, wall, stairs. The important things if you’re a Hunter.

Still, whatever it was, it was high enough and stable enough that it made an excellent position to spy on the current gambit game from afar. From the pinnacle, Cass-8 could see both of the near-identical platforms that stood proud but battered above the liquid lightning of this moon. What was occurring on one arena, though, was less than prideful.

The team was all bulk. Four Titans rocking heavy armour, big guns, moving as a clunky, ugly group. All meat, no mobility. The stuff Cass-8 had nightmares about. She tutted when an invader from the other team obliterated them all, scattering them to the winds with a single missile from a handheld launcher. Their ghosts looked on in utter disbelief, one of them audibly groaning. The invader, laughing heartily, danced a short shuffle, probably just to rub it in before Drifter hit the button and transmatted her back to her own team’s side.

If Cass-8 were there, that invader would’ve gone back with an arrow through her chest, of that she could be certain.

Wow. That was a violent thought. She’d never thought that way before.

Well, about Hive, sure. Vex, yeah. Eliksni was the closest she’d come to thinking it was wrong, but hey, shoot or get shot, right? But a Guardian? A full person? Dang.

That was rough.

The well-performing team jammed a veritable feast of motes into their bank, and began the process of killing their assigned Primeval. Two Envoys, burned. Bubble Envoy, burned. Then they laid their full combined power into the face of that big, ugly Taken. Bullets and tracers flew across the field, not a single round missing their mark. A Warlock even ripped a sword from the cascades of Solar Light that a Hunter had just loosed like thunder, and hurled waves of roiling flame from its blade. The Primeval was dead before the other team could realize what had happened.

The match ended, and Cass-8 watched the Drifter transmat down from the Derelict that ominously hung in the sky like a floating panopticon. He brought with him two crates; one filled with glimmer, the other with guns. The old Dark Age weaponry he handed out to the winning team, and to the cluster of bumbling Titans, a smattering of glimmer.

The teams of Guardians departed, and finally, it was only Drifter and his Ghost. A dim wave of Light washed over the field, gently breezing past Cass-8. Both the Risen and his drone snapped their gaze up to her perch, and she exhaled forcefully with the realisation she was no longer hidden from them. She stood, dropped from her tower, and took relaxed strides to meet them.

The Drifter chuckled at her approach, and addressed his Ghost. “Keep scannin’. Mark the usual goodies.” It bobbed as if to nod, begrudgingly. Then, the man turned to the Exo. “Figured you wouldn’t be far away.”

“Yeah?”

“Gambit’s your life, sister. I can tell.” He pulled his lips into a crooked shape. “One thing I don’t get, though, is why. You like puttin’ the hurt on Taken that badly? Or are you just a fan of the guns?”

She shook her head, orbiting Drifter, her own eyes surveying the charred battlefield. “Bit of both, I suppose. Then again…” She locked her fiery gaze onto him, even though he made no effort to follow her movements. “Could just be trust.”

Drifter snorted. “Funny stuff, ain’t it?”

“Hilarious. What do you mean?”

“You don’t know a lot about me. I’m aware how shady this all is, back-alley exchanges and unauthorized take-overs of hostile environments. For what? Sport?” He matched her eyes, a playful wryness to his face. “And yet, here you are. Shinin’ star of the Last City. Muddyin’ your new kicks with us renegades and scoundrels. All because you claim to trust me.”

Cass-8 stopped in her tracks, her boots scuffing the concrete briefly as she turned away from the Drifter. Her eyes met the soot patch where once there had been four Titans.

“If you were in there, they might have stood a chance, right?” Drifter must have followed her line. “Is that what you’re thinkin’?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, how about we think about it then, huh?” He took a seat on one of the emptied munitions crates. “Let’s look at Shaxx’s Crucible. Hectic. Chaotic. Bloody.”

“It’s an authorized Vanguard activity,” Cass-8 prodded.

“Oh, for sure. Nothin’ says ‘protectors of humanity’ like droppin’ a bunch of new lights into a free-for-all murder-fest full of god’s perfect killing machines, right?” He laughed. “You remember your first run in the Crucible?”

“I do.”

“Recount it for me, sister.”

She sighed, the sound distorted and electronic. “Wasn’t five minutes before I felt the full force of a Warlock nova. Hurt for about a second, then nothing-”

“No, no, no; Not what you felt in your body.” Drifter tapped at his temples sagely. “In your noggin’.”

Narrowing her eyes, she pondered. Her memories of the Crucible were a mix of jumbled emotions; triumphant victory, desperation, dread of a loss, fear when she heard the whip-crack of a Golden Gun, panicked stratagem.

Panic.

“I was… scared. I mean, I’d been in gunfights before. Vex were slow, Hive were soft, Cabal were big targets, and dumb. Guardians…” She shuddered involuntarily. “Pure havoc. Just being dumped in the middle of a completely hostile zone where gunfire never stops. Where you can’t count on anyone or anything but the weapon in your hands. And the Light.”

“That’s right. _Your_ light, anyway.” Drifted nodded. “And Gambit?”

“Camaraderie. Teamwork…”

“Trust,” Drifter finished for her. “Shaxx claims that the Crucible hardens Guardians. Maybe.” He scratched at the scruff of hair on his jaw. “Maybe. All I see are new lights getting’ shunted through trauma. Then they go out there, depending on nothin’ but the weapon in their hands, and they die.”

The Hunter hummed pensively. “But with gambit, they get a taste of our enemy. And how to beat them.” She stared at the ground for a moment, still as a statue. Then she spoke with a tone of overt consideration. “And the invaders?”

Drifter shrugged. “It’s still four on one.” He gestured to the smoldering ground zero of the invader’s rocket. “They weren’t workin’ together when the real threat came.”


End file.
